Awaiting special elections announcement for two House seats

The general election is long over, but because some candidates ran successfully for two offices at the same time, a pair of special elections will have to be scheduled for two seats in the state House.

One will be vacated in mid-January, when Democratic Rep. Eugene DePasquale of York County resigns from the House to be sworn in as Auditor General. He was elected to the office in November, but also re-elected to his House seat. DePasquale said his office isn’t rushing to finish constituent casework. “We were being pretty adamant, you know, keeping up with that stuff even during the campaign so no we don’t have much of a backlog here,” said DePasquale.

The Auditor General-elect said his decision to wait until next year to resign his seat was based partly on the odd legislative calendar and rules of the House.

"It would have created complications if I had decided to just do it in mid-December for example," said DePasquale. "So I was cognizant of the fact that I should just do it after January first."

The other seat that will be freed up is currently held by Allegheny County Democrat Matt Smith, who was elected to the state Senate as he simultaneously ran unopposed in his House district. Smith said he’ll resign at the end of the legislative session on November 30.

Calling for special elections falls to the House Majority Leader next month, and to the House Speaker in January, but there’s no word on when the special elections will be announced.

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